Huang Yun had actually gone into hiding. She had discovered Si Cheng and the others when they entered the village. Thinking back to how she had always acted arrogantly in front of him and said many hurtful things, she felt a little afraid to face him.
Now that he saw the family of four leave, he turned around and went home.
"Where did you go? Why weren't you home just now?" Si Zhengwei asked as soon as Huang Yun entered the door.
Huang Yun was startled. "Why are you at home? Didn't Si Cheng and the others already leave?"
"So you knew they were coming and deliberately hid away." Although she knew Ah Cheng didn't want to see her either, she didn't expect Huang Yun to actually hide. It seems she'll have to question Si Ming and the others about how many outrageous things they did back then.
"I just happened to have something to do and went out. I saw they brought a lot of things. What are they?" Huang Yun started looking around as soon as he entered the room, but Si Zhengwei had stuffed all the things into different corners.
Si Zhengwei pointed to a corner and said, "Make a pot of rice later, but don't touch anything else. Keep a low profile, we need to avoid people at this time."
"Oh, there's rice!" Huang Yun rushed over to check, not paying much attention to what followed.
Seeing her like this, Si Zhengwei knew she hadn't listened to him. He went up to her again and repeated himself. Seeing that Huang Yun still didn't take it seriously, Si Zhengwei couldn't help but grab her arm tightly and make her look at him.
The stinging pain in her arm made Huang Yun exclaim, "What are you doing? You're hurting me!"
"I'm talking to you, can't you hear me?"
"I heard you. It's just cooking a pot of white rice, isn't it?"
"Anything else?" Si Zhengwei asked through gritted teeth.
"what else?"
Si Zhengwei angrily dragged her to every corner, saying, "These, and these, are all unacceptable, do you understand?"
"Wow, so much stuff! It seems Si Cheng is living a good life." Huang Yun forgot about the pain in his arm and was thinking about what to do to reward himself later.
With a slap, Si Zhengwei, unable to bear it any longer, woke her up with a slap.
"Besides these things, what else can you notice?"
Huang Yun also came to his senses at this moment, realizing that he had been acting very strangely just now, but these things were really rare in the past year.
"You hit me, is it because your eldest son came to complain? Now he's all grown up and dares to talk nonsense." Huang Yun felt a little guilty thinking that Si Cheng might have told her about what she had done before.
"What complaint should he file? Didn't you always say that being a stepmother is difficult and that children are hard to discipline?" Si Zhengwei now seriously doubted whether what this woman had said before was true.
"How do I know if he's making things up? You know he's always disliked me." Huang Yun wasn't stupid; he deduced from this that the other party might not have said anything at all.
Seeing that he couldn't get any more information from her, Si Zhengwei repeated what he had said before and made her repeat it before he released her arm.
"You better not be lying to me. If I find out what you've done to A-Cheng, you'll know what the consequences will be," Si Zhengwei said to her as he turned back before leaving the house.
Huang Yun patted his chest after watching him walk away, "Luckily, I managed to get away with it. I wonder if that kid Si Cheng said anything?"
Si Zhengwei used to be so busy all the time, leaving all the family matters to me, so it was easy to get by back then. But it's not so easy now.
However, when he thought about what Si Cheng had brought this time, he began to feel a little resentful.
As the days went by, the drought worsened, and the crops in the fields had to be watered every day, otherwise even the seedlings would wither and die.
Today, everyone in Pinghe Village gathered at the village entrance. This time, it was because Yun Sanman and several other villagers had worked for several days straight to finally finish making the waterwheel.
In order to avoid using the water in the village's reservoir, everyone focused their attention on the lake at the village entrance. However, the lake is some distance from the village's fields, and carrying the water to the fields would be a huge undertaking.
Later, some people thought of waterwheels, but without a rapid flow of water, the kind of waterwheel that automatically fills the water was out of the question. Several elderly people then thought of hand-operated waterwheels, which they had only seen in books and were rarely seen in reality.
Later, an elderly man from the village brought some cured meat to the agricultural experts in Xin San Village and asked them to produce a set of drawings and instructions.
After several days of experimentation and with the help of the entire village, the waterwheel was finally manufactured.
The process of manufacturing the waterwheel was relatively easy to handle in all aspects, but the most troublesome part for them was the internal components.
Each end of the axle needs a cast iron ring, which cannot be replaced by anything else, otherwise the waterwheel will break after a few turns. The small iron parts inside are also very important.
However, there is no way to customize these things now. At this time, everyone remembered the pig iron that they had exchanged with Yaojia Village before. They originally thought that they could exchange some pig iron back as a precaution, and now it can be used to fill the gap.
During those days, Si Cheng and the others spent their free time tending to the newly built furnace in the village, using charcoal fire of unknown quality to burn pig iron.
With his immense strength, Si Cheng managed to shape the iron into form, thus creating the supporting structure for these waterwheels.
Because of the limited parts, only a two-person waterwheel was made. Everyone carefully carried the long keel to the lakeside. Following the instructions, they first installed the axle, shaft, and footrest of the waterwheel. Then, they placed one end of the keel on the shore and the other end in the water, and then used bamboo poles to lift it up.
After all the installation steps were completed, Yun Sanman and Yun Mingwu stood on the footrests on both sides, holding onto the crossbars.
"Start." With the second grandfather's command, the two of them stepped on the footrests at the same time. As the left and right feet stepped on in turn, the footrests rotated with the axle, driving the transmission of the keel blades.
The leaves rustled and the lake water slowly flowed into the previously built canal.
"We did it!" Everyone cheered.
When the time comes, the lake water can be channeled into the village's farmland along the irrigation canal, thus ensuring the irrigation of the village's farmland.
"That's wonderful! Our village has accomplished another great feat."
Just as everyone was having a good time, several elderly people were eager to try out the waterwheel.
"Come down and let us go up and try it out," Lü Yunfeng said to the two people who were having a great time pedaling on the waterwheel.
"We've just gotten the hang of it, let us keep going for a bit. And you shouldn't come and join in the fun, it really takes some physical strength." Yun Mingwu had probably become immune to the old men's teasing lately, and would occasionally retort.
“Do you think you’re so young? You’re almost grandfathers. And how do you know I don’t have the strength to operate this waterwheel?” Grandpa Lü was anything but old at this point.
When the villagers saw that several elderly people were also trying to step on it, they all came over to persuade them to stop.
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